My owners tell me the word “beagle” comes from the French word “begueule,” which means “open throat” or “loudmouth.”
Ain’t that the truth.
So imagine what happens when you stick a bunch of us together on a boat…
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I guess some dogs like to swim.
Me, I'm not so sure.
But I'll give it a try.
It got too deep!
Where'd you guys go?
No, don't push me! I don't like this!
This is not fun.
Can you see the fear in my eyes?
I'm not in this picture -- not that you can probably tell.
Beagles came from near and far for a very important gathering at an Arlington dog park. The top agenda item: how to get rid of those pesky things called cats once and for all.
After a meet-and-greet session of howling, digging and sniffing, we got down to business. Discussions started off well. In fact, all 15 of us were close to a consensus — until a squirrel ran through the park. Needless to say, the remainder of our agenda was tabled.
Our talks will resume in a few weeks on a boat cruising along the Potomac River, where there will be no squirrels to distract us. Yes, there’s such thing as a canine cruise. It happens every Thursday all summer. (Why didn’t someone tell me about this sooner?)
The DNA results are in: I’m not part basset hound (like everybody thinks), just a fat beagle. I still don’t understand why my owners needed to poke my mouth to find this out, though. That was annoying. And besides, haven’t they heard my howl? Definite beagle.
So, anyway, can we now move on to more important things? Like, what’s this I hear about a cage and an airplane? My official position on that — “Not happening.”
You can't leave me if you can't get up.
Tags: airplane, basset hound, beagle, cage, dna
…although I’m bringing the Empire State Building with me.
Now that I’m going to be a diplo-pet, I’m on a quest to meet dogs of all breeds and backgrounds. True, I howl and growl at every dog I see back in my native New York (I don’t discriminate; I dislike them all equally), but on the road for the past few weeks — crossing state borders, no less — I’ve been trying to be more open-minded.
First, I met my cousins: two dogs who live in a land called Ohio. They are a kind of dog called boxer, which as far as I can tell just means huge and slobbery. And they like to sniff stuff, including me. I tried so hard to get away, but they just kept charging me. I was so miserable with those boxers that I didn’t even notice the cat, who I’m sure was horrible too, judging by every other cat I’ve met. The only good thing about Ohio was a local foodstuff called “Snausage.”
Plus, I had to help drive.
Then I crossed into Illinois and spent a few nights with two dogs called golden retrievers. The old one was okay but the young one liked to jump on me. I barked and barked at her to get off but it did no good. I had to climb on tables to save myself! Humph. No respect for her elders. I could live without that golden retriever. You know what else I could live without? The cat that pounced on me in the middle of the night. I let out a howl that could probably be heard by those Ohio boxers.
Across another border, in Missouri, there was a tan chihuahua. His owners fed him a foreign food that was very good. It was wet. (In my native New York, food only seems to come in the dry variety.) This little chihuahua was slow enough that I could steal his delicious wet food, so he’s alright by me. Then two tiny, fluffy black dogs joined us. And get this: they come from a neighborhood called “Dog Town”! But in Dog Town they seem to speak in a yippy little bark that I don’t know, and not even the chihuahua could translate it for me. I just assumed they were saying, “Eat my wet food too,” and so I did.
